


face it all together (put your hand in my hand)

by theartofbeinganerd



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Also for 0.5 Seconds, Did I Mention There Were IW Spoilers??, Domestic Bliss, F/M, Infinity War Fallout, Infinity War spoilers, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Perthshire, Possibly AU, Post Season 5, Pregnancy, for like 0.5 seconds, most likely AU, probably AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 14:04:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14498619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theartofbeinganerd/pseuds/theartofbeinganerd
Summary: It's only been a few months since Jemma and Fitz left SHIELD behind to raise a family in Perthshire, and already they're settling into a nice, safe, and overwhelmingly average life.However, when they turn on the news one night, it's to find that the world is in danger once more, and their time as a normal couple expecting their first child is over before it even really began - now, it's time to get back to what they do best.Written for the prompt: "Could I please request Fitzsimmons have left shield for the domestic life and are pregnant when suddenly they are tossed back into the chaos? Thank you!"





	face it all together (put your hand in my hand)

**Author's Note:**

> (As a note, this fic is assuming that A) AoS is behind the MCU timeline by ~six months, and B) no one on the team was affected by The Ending.)
> 
> Title is taken from Skyfall by Adele, which seemed fitting.
> 
> MAJOR SPOILERS FOR INFINITY WAR!!

“Jemma? _Jemma_?”

Giving a sleepy groan, Jemma buried her face further into her pillow, tugging the blanket higher over her head in hopes that that would allow her just a few more minutes to sleep.

Fitz’s familiar chuckle sounded then, muffled slightly by the blanket over her head. Gently, he found her shoulder through the layers and gave it a little shake, murmuring tenderly, “Jemma, it’s time to get up. C’mon, you don’t want to sleep all day, do you? It’s so nice out, and I’d hate for you to miss it.”

“It’s nice in here too,” Jemma muttered, squeezing her eyes a bit more tightly closed.

He laughed once more at that, then she felt the mattress dip as he climbed onto it, sliding under the covers and sliding right up behind her. His arm curled around her midsection, his hand settling on her bulging stomach, and she felt the soft press of his lips against her neck.

Cracking open one eye, she craned her neck to glance back at him, questioning suspiciously, “What are you doing?”

“Well, if you’re spending the day in bed, then I should be able to as well, hmm? It’s only fair.”

“ _Fair_?” Jemma repeated, arching her eyebrows, both eyes now fully open as she stared at him in disbelief. “I’ll have you know that _I’m_ exhausted from carrying _your_ child – what’s _your_ excuse?”

Fitz pursed his lips thoughtfully, apparently mulling that over for a moment, though she could see the way that his mouth was twitching as he fought against a smile. “Constant runs to the store to get every ice cream flavor under the sun, only to get back and find that you want strawberry now instead of Rocky Road?”

Letting out an indignant huff, Jemma threw her elbow back into his ribs before finally pulling herself up into a sitting position (though, not without a bit of effort and a few groans of protest). “Be _quiet_ , will you?”

Fitz popped out of the blankets then, smirking rather proudly as he watched her carefully climb out of bed, bracing her hands on her back as she took a couple of steps away. “Got you out of bed though, didn’t I?”

Startled, Jemma paused, thinking back over the past couple of minutes. Narrowing her eyes, she threw a dark look at him over her shoulder, insisting, “Nonsense; I only got up because _your_ daughter was pressing on my bladder.”

“Sure, sure, of course.” Throwing back the covers, Fitz got out of their bed as well, standing and stretching his arms above his head. Just as she was entering the en suite and he was leaving the bedroom, though, he called over his shoulder, “I can’t believe you didn’t even recognize your own trick; you got me out of bed at the Academy enough times by playing on _my_ weakness – food.”

Not even dignifying his statement with a response, Jemma simply tossed another glare his way before stepping into the bathroom and closing the door behind her (though it did little to mask Fitz’s triumphant laughter). It _was_ true, though – she couldn’t even count how many times she had gone to Fitz’s room, already prepared with doughnuts or some other horribly sugary breakfast food to tempt him out of bed and into the lab with.

 _However_ , Jemma refused to believe they were the same thing, not when _she_ was overly tired from having carried their daughter for the past six months, while Fitz’s only excuse had been that he was a teenage boy.

After finishing up in the bathroom, she changed out of her pajamas and into a casual t-shirt that stretched over her growing stomach and a pair of leggings, then left the bedroom in order to go downstairs and join Fitz.

Though it had been months now since they’d left SHIELD and the Lighthouse behind, it still took Jemma by surprise sometimes, just how light and open their little cottage in Perthshire was. It’d been difficult, of course, to leave all of their friends and teammates, to deal with the guilt of leaving their jobs of saving the world, of saving people, in order to start a new life together in Scotland.

But, when she’d found out that she was pregnant in the wake of breaking the loop and finally managing to save the planet from cracking apart in the eleventh hour, they’d both agreed that SHIELD was no place to be raising a family.

They’d, of course, invited Deke (who _hadn’t_ disappeared, like they’d thought he would, after the breaking of the loop) to come with them when they left. But, he’d ultimately decided to spend some time doing some travelling, seeing all of the places that he’d only ever heard about growing up in the Lighthouse – they got a new postcard from him almost every week, and there was always a room waiting for him if he ever wanted it.

“You made pancakes?” Jemma asked delightedly as she reached their kitchen and caught a whiff of the familiar smell wafting through it.

“Surprise,” Fitz replied simply, handing her a plate with a warm smile.

Gratefully, she went up on the tips of her toes to peck his lips, then took her plate over to their breakfast nook. He joined her shortly, and they ate their breakfast together, casually discussing potential plans for the day.

One of the hardest things about leaving SHIELD for a more _average_ life after so many years had to be just how much _free_ time they had, to do with as they pleased. They’d spent a lot of time recently preparing for the baby, getting the nursery set up and gradually purchasing everything that they’d need for when she came.

But, Fitz had been right about the weather, and it truly was such a nice day out that Jemma suggested, “Why don’t we go for a walk? We could even hold hands and pick wildflowers from that little field down the street and disgust everyone else with how absurdly happy and in love we are.”

He let out a laugh at that, picking up both of their empty plates and getting up to place them in the sink to be washed later. The sound of his laughter had a smile automatically curving Jemma’s lips; before they’d settled in there, she hadn’t been able to remember the last time that she’d truly heard him _laugh_ , and now it was something that she heard more and more often. Though she hated to think it sometimes, leaving SHIELD had honestly done wonders for both of them.

“Alright, sure; a walk sounds great.” Offering a hand to help her up, Fitz added, “But, if you get tired –”

“I’ll let you know,” Jemma finished, rolling her eyes fondly and nodding as she stood. “Yes, I know, Fitz.”

“Good.” He dropped a kiss on her forehead, briefly carding his fingers through her hair, and Jemma sighed softly in response, closing her eyes and leaning into him.

Everything was, for the first in such a very long time, truly perfect.

So, of course, she had to know that it couldn’t possibly stay that way, not when they were who they were.

-

That evening, after a full day of walking and enjoying the sunshine, then sitting out on their little back porch and discussing plans for their small backyard, where they would put a swing-set for when their daughter was older, and where to put a garage, possibly for experimenting in. By the time that they’d had dinner and curled up together on the couch to watch some TV, fatigue was already beginning to settle once more into her bones.

She leaned up against Fitz’s side as he flipped through the channels, her head falling to rest on his shoulder, and she smiled slightly when she felt him press an absent kiss to the top of her head. Her tired eyes were just slipping closed when she registered the fact that Fitz had stiffened beside her.

Immediately, her eyes flew open, and she glanced worriedly up at him. Even from his profile, she could tell that his eyes were locked on the TV, and that his jaw was tensely set. A sense of dread filling her, Jemma turned her head to find out what had caused such a reaction in him.

One of the local news networks was on, a ‘breaking news’ banner along the bottom of the screen in bright red, and the same couple of clips of a fight between Iron Man, another hero with some sort of strange magic-like powers, and a pair of what appeared to be aliens in the streets of New York kept playing over and over. The reporter was talking about how there had been a ship sighted over the city earlier that day, but then it had disappeared, along with the heroes, and that people feared that this was far from over.

Fitz promptly shut the TV off, and a heavy silence settled between them in the wake of the unsettling news.

They went through the motions of getting ready for bed in that same silence, both caught up in thoughts of what this meant for the world, for them, and likely, both just waiting for the other to break it. It was clear that neither one of them really wanted to talk about it, but they also knew that they were going to have to at some point, and it would have to be _soon_.

It wasn’t until they’d climbed back into bed, which had seemed so warm and inviting that morning, and now just felt cold and empty as fear settled itself back into their lives as though it had never left.

For awhile, they both just laid there in the dark, though Jemma knew that Fitz was still awake, and was quite sure that he knew that she was as well.

The whole time, all Jemma could seem to think about was how horrible it felt to have thought that they’d left all of this behind them to have a safer, more normal life for their daughter, only to be no doubt swept right back into it with almost no notice. But of course, in the back of her mind, she had always known that they could never really _leave_ SHIELD, could never really put saving the world behind them – not when it would always need saving.

Still, she hadn’t been able to help but _hope_.

Finally, she released a heavy sigh, and broke the nearly suffocating silence, whispering into the thick and pressing darkness around them, “What are we going to do? We know that if it gets bad enough, they’ll need us.”

Fitz gave a matching sigh, and Jemma hated to see the weight right back on his shoulders that had all-but disappeared in the their time in Perthshire; she’d seen him healing, moving forward, finally beginning to put everything that had happened behind him, and now it was as though none of that had ever happened. A bit hesitantly, he offered, “We could just…stay here. No one on the team would blame us for putting our family first, you know.”

“I know,” she agreed softly, but then she closed her eyes and inhaled a shuddering breath before going on, “but, we both know that…that we’re going to go back anyway, because it’s just who we are, who we’ve always been.”

Another quiet sigh left his lips, and he replied simply, “I know.” She felt him scooting closer to her then, closing the distance between them in order to hold her close, his hand falling naturally to rest protectively over her stomach before he dropped a kiss on her shoulder.

And, that was that.

-

The next morning, after a night of fitful sleep for them both, they woke up to a changed world.

Every news station was reporting in a panic about people turning to _ash_ in the streets, all across the globe – people disappearing right off the face of the Earth, and it was far worse than they ever could’ve imagined.

They got a call from Coulson within the hour, and it wasn’t long before May was landing a quinjet in their driveway to pick them up and bring them back to the Lighthouse.

Jemma couldn’t help but feel a burst of sorrow and something almost like…grief as she glanced back over her shoulder at their cottage. It looked sad and abandoned, with all the doors closed and locked behind them, all of the curtains pulled closed as they left. Who knew when they’d be back – or, even _if_ they would be?

It had been so, _so_ wonderful while it lasted; she only wished that it had lasted longer than a handful of months.

Forcing herself to look away from the dream that she’d had for so long but had only been able to live so briefly, Jemma climbed up the ramp beside Fitz, who went to secure their bags as she stepped up to talk to May in the cockpit.

“How bad is it? What happened? People can’t actually be _disappearing_ , can they?” It was improbable, after all – energy couldn’t be destroyed, couldn’t just turn to _ash_ on a global scale.

May pressed her lips together in a firm line as she lifted the quinjet off of the ground and took off toward the Lighthouse. After a lengthy moment, she finally answered shortly, “They can. We don’t know the full story; some alien with enough power to take out the Avengers caused it.”

“But _how_?” Fitz asked disbelievingly, stepping up beside Jemma then.

“Infinity Stones,” she replied simply.

Startled, Jemma glanced at Fitz, and found him already seeking out her gaze as well. They’d heard of Infinity Stones, of course; they were powerful alien artifacts with unknown origins that controlled time, space, reality, and so on. But, they were supposed to be so powerful that almost no one could even hold them, let alone _wield_ them.

“An Infinity Stone did this? How –”

Jemma’s question was cut off abruptly as May responded, “Not one – _all_ of them.”

“ _All of them_?” both Jemma and Fitz repeated in shock, sharing another terrified glance.

Mind racing, Jemma tried to figure out how that was even possible, unable to wrap her head around someone being _so_ powerful that they could wield all of the stones _at once_. It was enough to have her reaching out grab the back of the empty seat beside May for balance, her next breath coming with a bit of difficulty. No wonder this alien had been able to take out all of the _Avengers_.

“So…so people are just disappearing off the planet?” she asked, barely able to get her voice louder than a whisper.

“Not just the planet,” May corrected, giving a short shake of her head, “ _everywhere_.”

Suddenly needing to sit down, Jemma stepped back, dropping down heavily into the first seat in the back of the quinjet that she came across.

Someone had used Infinity Stones – _all_ of them – to have people all over the _universe_ disappearing? How…how was this even _possible_?

They’d fought an ancient Inhuman with a god complex and the power to sway other Inhumans to do his bidding, they’d met a man possessed by a literal _demon_ – she’d spent months on an alien planet, for god’s sake, but this…

This was _too much_.

-

By the time that they arrived back at the Lighthouse and met back up with the rest of the team (who May had informed them, much to their relief, had remained untouched by the death sweeping across the planet), they found out that the alien had been named Thanos, and that he’d used the stones to destroy half of the universe’s population.

And, they found out that the Avengers’ roster had been significantly thinned by this death wave, and that Iron Man and a handful of other heroes were missing and presumed dead. There was rioting in the streets, people were treating it almost as a ‘rapture’ type event, and no one knew where to go from there.

“So, that’s where we come in,” Coulson informed their gathered group, standing in the control center of the Lighthouse. It was the same small team that they’d been for years by then, but Jemma had never felt the full impact of just _how_ small a team it was until then.

“And what can we do, if the Avengers couldn’t even stop this guy?” Elena asked realistically, folding her arms over her chest and arching a disbelieving eyebrow.

“We do whatever we can to help whoever’s left,” Coulson replied, eyeing the seven people in front of him, “and we be what we’ve always been; the shield, even if that means shielding them from themselves. People are going to be reckless and dangerous in way that we’ve seldom seen before, and that’s where we’re going to come in.”

There was a beat of silence, then murmurs of agreement, and Coulson began giving directions about how this was going to go down, and what SHIELD would look like from then on, with this new world that they’d found themselves thrust so suddenly into.

However, Jemma wasn’t listening for the moment, and instead focused on Fitz as he gently tugged on her hand to get her to step away from the others. He lowered his voice, leaning in to apologize sincerely, “I’m sorry, this…this shouldn’t be how…” He trailed off, but his free hand coming up to curve along her stomach made his message more than clear.

“It isn’t,” Jemma agreed, her tone matching his, “but it’s not any of our faults, least of all yours. This…this is the life that we signed up for when we joined SHIELD, and the life that we committed to many, many times after that.” Giving his hand a small squeeze and lifting her own free hand to cover his on her stomach, she added, “And, well, at least we’re making a better world for her to come into.”

Fitz caught and held her gaze for a moment, but then a small, half-smile appeared on his lips, and he nodded in agreement. “Yeah, for her,” he repeated.

“Besides, Perthshire has waited this long for us – it can wait a little longer while we do a bit more world-saving.” When she offered a smile of her own, he gave another nod as his smile grew just slightly, then squeezed her hand as well.

“Fitzsimmons?” Coulson called, gaining their attention, and they both turned, ready to receive their directions, their hands still clasped between them.

Even with everything that had changed recently, even with a child on the way now and making for higher stakes, nothing had changed, not really – Jemma still knew with certainty that they would get through this latest catastrophe just as they’d gotten through everything else –

Together.

**Author's Note:**

> You can also find me on tumblr - I'm theartofbeinganerd over there as well!


End file.
